The new seven-story building, connected to the main building by a bridge, will increase the space available for patient care, education, and research at the Városmajor Heart and Vascular Center in Budapest by 50 percent, Semmelweis University announced on its website. As a result of ten years of work, the medical university celebrated the largest development in its history on Monday.

With an investment of 9.1 billion forints (23.7 million euros), the clinic can become “a true European supercenter” and the continent’s largest heart transplant center. “This is such a significant milestone that it will change our everyday lives and open up new perspectives in providing the highest level of care for our patients, as well as in research and education,” said Dr. Béla Merkely, director and rector of Semmelweis University, at the opening ceremony for the clinic’s new Diagnostic and Therapeutic Center.

As he explained, the seven-story building, with a net area of 4,492 square meters, increases the floor space available for the high-level performance of the three core tasks of the Városmajor Heart and Vascular Center by approximately 50 percent.

“This gives us everything we need to operate as a true European supercenter,” said Dr. Merkely.

Nothing proves the importance of this better than the fact that cardiovascular diseases are among the most common diseases affecting the population and are the leading causes of death not only in Hungary but worldwide,”

he added.

The high-tech imaging diagnostic center in the new building, with one MRI and two CT machines, as well as the state-of-the-art hybrid interventional and electrophysiological laboratory, offer new perspectives for the clinic’s patient care activities.

With ten new outpatient rooms, the institute can not only treat more patients, but also welcome them in significantly more comfortable conditions. Separate examination rooms and waiting rooms have been set up for heart transplant patients, making outpatient care even safer for immunosuppressed patients who have undergone organ transplants.

An eight-bed intensive care unit is now available for heart transplant patients and patients requiring circulatory support. The new student spaces, including the lecture hall and PhD research room, further raise the standard of medical and health science education.

The rector recalled that Semmelweis University has been among the world’s top 50 in the field of cardiology and vascular medicine for many years, ranking 35th on the latest U.S. News list.

With the current expansion, our clinic in Városmajor will not only be the largest institution in the region in terms of both case numbers and scientific performance, but it may also become the largest heart transplant center in Europe. All this is in the interests of patients, as knowledge, experience, and innovation are most concentrated in large centers,”

emphasized Dr. Merkely.

“The ‘Városmajor 70’ project combines everything that makes Semmelweis University successful. Education, research, patient care, high-tech imaging, and new perspectives in the field of heart transplantation. This is how Semmelweis will become Europe’s number one heart transplant center and one of the world’s top 100 universities,” said Balázs Hankó at the ceremony. The Minister of Culture and Innovation emphasized that Semmelweis University is already the best university in Central Europe, the largest healthcare training center, and the largest and most complex healthcare provider in the country.

He spoke about the renewal of Hungarian higher education and the fact that 12 Hungarian universities are already among the top five percent in the world, with Semmelweis leading the way among Hungarian institutions. “The goal is to have a Hungarian university among the top 100 higher education institutions in the world by 2030. 600 billion forints (1.5 billion euros) in development and three times the operating funding has been injected into the system, bringing higher education funding to two percent of GDP,” he said.

The Városmajor Heart and Vascular Center treats approximately 125,000 outpatients and 16,500 inpatients annually. Thanks to the new investment, this number could increase by as much as 30-40 percent starting in December.

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Via semmelweis.hu, Featured image: MTI/Kocsis Zoltán